On this page, we go over several of the most frequently asked questions regarding
Survival Hunter in World of Warcraft — Battle for Azeroth Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1.
This will be updated as more common repeated questions surface over the course
of the expansion.

1. How much Haste should Survival Hunters have? / Is there a Haste cap?

For Survival, there are no Haste softcaps or minimum breakpoints that you must reach.
At 100% Haste, your global cooldown (GCD) will be 0.75 seconds, which is the lowest
that it can go. This cap cannot be reached from gear alone, although you can reach it
with a lot of Haste buffs and Bloodlust/Heroism combined.

As far as your gear goes, however, there is no minimum Haste or Haste cap.

2. Which Race/Racial Ability is the best for Survival Hunter?

Generally speaking, races that have powerful on-use abilities like Orcs,
Trolls, Blood Elves and Lightforged Draenei are never bad choices.
For Survival on Horde, Trolls and Blood Elves are generally the best choices.
For Alliance, it is between Lightforged Draenei and Gnomes.

3. How good is Survival Hunter in BfA Patch 8.1?

Survival is one of the strongest single-target DPS in the game, and
provides the best DPS in raids over the other two Hunter specs.

For how good the spec is, it is extremely underplayed and it is this
author's opinion that Survival is vastly underrated. The primary downside
of Survival is that it is melee, and it does not bring
some of the utility and survivability that Rogues, Warriors and Demon Hunters
do, but, in many cases, it can make up for this with its extremely high boss
damage output.

4. What Pets Should I Use?

We recommend Tenacity pets as your default pet for PvE content.
They provide a powerful bonus to your maximum health, and a defensive
cooldown on a 3-minute cooldown.

For Leveling and Open World content, we recommend Ferocity pets. They
provide a Leech bonus that heals you when you do damage, and they allow you to
cast Bloodlust/Heroism every 10 minutes to help you on
big pulls and difficult enemies. They are also more handy for world PvP.
There are no Ferocity pets that stand out far above the others.

Cunning Pets are useful mostly when there is no need for any defensive
ability, such as when you are doing open world content that is trivial for
your gear level. There are no Cunning pets that stand out far above the
others.

5. What Piece is Better, X or Y?

The answer to this question in any context will always be to simulate it.
This is because what is an upgrade for you may not be an upgrade for someone
else. In other words, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all answer,
even when talking about 2 completely identical comparisons from you to
another person. Everything in your gear has an effect on everything else.

This applies to gear, trinkets, Azerite Traits,
and even talents in certain situations.

The only exception to this rule is when a specific fight dictates a certain
set of optimal talents, for example. If you are curious about what kind of
setup to go for on a specific fight, WarcraftLogs.com's rankings and statistics
are a good place to see what others are doing.

We have a guide on how to sim yourself here:

6. How Much of X Stat Should I Have?

For the most part, there is no set "amount" of any stat that you should
have. Nor are there stat goals or a particular distribution of stats that you
want to go for. It is very common for people to overestimate the importance of
having the "right" secondaries, when in reality, having a higher quantity of
stats will almost always beat having "better" stats. Having 120 of your worst
stat is often better than having 100 of your best stat, the differences are not
as big as many people think.

7. Changelog

17 Dec. 2018: Added several new questions and answers.

10 Dec. 2018: This page has been reviewed for Patch 8.1 and no changes are necessary.

12 Aug. 2018: Page created for Battle for Azeroth launch.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This guide has been written by Azortharion,
the main theorycrafter of the spec for many years. He is an accomplished player
with dozen of top parses for all specs throughout the game's history. He is
also the Admin of Trueshot
Lodge, the Hunter Class Discord, and you can watch his stream on Twitch.